


Flirting, With Death

by helianskies



Series: Lost In a February Song [6]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Accidental Drug Use, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Assassination Plot(s), Developing Relationship, Drug Use, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Sex, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28873047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helianskies/pseuds/helianskies
Summary: You're supposed to keep work and personal life, like relationships, separate—that's basic. The others don't always believe Arthur when he says he's trying, but then, Antonio never was a stickler for the rules.
Relationships: England/Spain (Hetalia)
Series: Lost In a February Song [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2117409
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16





	Flirting, With Death

_**February 2019.  
London, England.** _

The plan had not exactly been to get the target hammered to the point where he could not stand meaning that Arthur had had to improvise the remainder of the mission. The _actual_ plan had been to have the target drink a cocktail containing a weak enough poison to give him severe stomach ache so that he would go to the bathroom, so that Arthur could finish him off in privacy. But of course, when the man was a terrible lightweight and had knocked the glass containing the only dose of poison that Arthur had with him and let it smash on the floor, that plan had to be scratched.

The next best thing had been to escort the man back to his hotel room (they were in the hotel bar already; Arthur was posing as an attendee to a local science conference and had naturally befriended his target—a chemist currently developing new warfare, _naughty boy_ ). If he couldn't kill him on neutral ground, then in his room it was—it was simply a good job that Francis had already handled the cameras on site, replacing the evening's footage with a rerun from a few weeks prior. At least he would be covered that way.

It took approximately ten minutes to get the terrible drunk up to the eighth and top floor, where his room (read: luxury suite) was. Arthur, still under the guise of a fellow chemistry fanatic, opened the door using the provided key card and helped the target stumble his way to a seat so he could sit down, recover, and then in his own words _'sleep away the wobbles and head-clouds'._

And Arthur thought _he_ was bad.

For now, he continued his pretence with the intention of waiting for the man to be in his bedroom, so he could at least smother him while he slept so it looked like a more natural passing. _It's the best I can do._ He provided a glass of water for the man and spoke with him whilst he was sitting down in the lounge area—a conversation that was largely one-sided (not in Arthur's favour) and half-gibberish, half-verbal diarrhoea. 

It was another ten minutes before the target said he felt a little better and that it was probably a good time to go to bed. Arthur was more than happy to help him get there. Everything was slowly falling back into place. Not into its _original_ place, which was keeled over a toilet seat, but _a_ place. A place that was entirely suitable.

Of course, what neither of them expected was to get across the suite and into the bedroom, only to find there was someone already there. Arthur bit back a frightful curse ( _what the fuck is this bastard fucking doing here, for fuck sake, when the fuck was this in this plan_ — _?_ ) but the man leaning on him seemed entirely enthralled by the strange brunette that had somehow appeared in his room.

Antonio smiled at them both from where he perched on the edge of the foot of the bed, a glass of fizzing champagne in hand. "Excuse the intrusion, gentlemen, but management sent me up with a little gift," he remarked, gesturing aside to a table in the room laden with two bottles of bubbles, some chocolates and other little hamper goods. "An apology for the mistake this morning with your reservation and key card."

A mistake that had been entirely the fault of Francis. He had messed around with the hotel's electronic systems to make a spare key card to the target's room so that, after killing him, Arthur was free to search the suite for what they needed. But clearly, Francis had copied the codes onto two spare cards and kept one back as an emergency—a card that had presumably let Antonio into the room. _Without_ Arthur being informed. Was this because the plan had changed…? 

Or was it because Antonio just didn't know when to stay in the backseat? Did Francis even know he was here? _Fuck sake…_ He adored the man but there was a time and a place for it.

All the while, the still pretty damn drunk and unsteady man seemed more than pleased with his 'gifts' and Antonio stood up from where he had been sitting down, walking over to the pair of them and significantly closing the gap.

"I'm sure the gift is appreciated, but I think he needs to be left alone now to sleep off his drinks," Arthur said pointedly, hoping that the message would get through to the other: _bugger off._

"Oh, well," Antonio replied with his ever-calm demeanour and flippancy, the glass in his hand being offered out to the target, "one more drink wouldn't _hurt_ … right?"

"Wouldn't it?" the Brit muttered. 

He had to assume that there was something in that drink—something improvised more poorly than his plan. The issue was, whatever Antonio had slipped in there could probably be traced post-mortem, where the other substance had been carefully sourced to ensure death looked like nothing more than a heart attack—they hadn't been able to get enough for more than one attempt (that shit was _expensive_ ). So in Arthur's opinion, this would be a mistake. It was better to cut the air supply with a pillow than poison him with something as obvious as cyanide.

Antonio, however, was going to be persistent. That was predictable. What _wasn't_ predictable was that the brunette teased the target, who reached out for the drink, by moving the glass away and towards himself. "Since your bodyguard is so concerned, here—" Antonio lifted the drink to his own lips and to Arthur's mortification, actually drank down a good sip. Was it… _not_ poisoned…? Arthur was stunned, and Antonio held the drink out once more. "It's perfectly good champagne—the very best. Goes down _very_ smooth…"

Evidently convinced, the target took the glass (Arthur noted the extremely obvious playfulness in Antonio's eyes, which only riled up the older man when he _winked_ at him, creating an unholy connection between them that Arthur thoroughly despised. The vanity of it!) and, perhaps in a move to impress or merely deepen his inebriation, he downed the rest of the crisp champagne in one go. It received an applause from Antonio. It received an anxious look from Arthur. _Any second_ , he told himself, _he's going to drop dead, spluttering and writhing like a fish._

He really hated it when Antonio interfered. Usually it was something small—a slight kink in the plan's run, a tweak to how they were going to kill their target. But _this_. _This_ was quite frankly ridiculous, and it was jeopardising the whole point of the 'natural causes' verdict they were meant to be aiming for! The man's death was meant to be a _shame_ , not a _murder!_

"You were right," the target slurred with a laugh, "that went down like… like… _really_ good champagne!"

"See? I told you it was good. Management wanted to make sure you got the best."

Arthur was starting to think that 'management' meant 'Francis' and that the 'gift' was actually just Antonio helping him fall into an early grave.

"They did a _gooood_ job," the man drawled. Arthur saw him starting to wobble a bit and caught his arm so he didn't lean too far, which earned him a quiet thanks, before the target decided to suggest: "Why don't we all… sit down together and finish a bottle, hm? I could— I could do with the company."

"Oh, no, I shouldn't. I shouldn't impose," Antonio replied with a sheepish smile, an apologetic look that simultaneously said ' _beg for it, though, and I'll consider it_ ' (Arthur… may or may not have been familiar with such a look). The brunette looked to Arthur briefly, and then back to the target. "I will leave you two alone so you can have your privacy—"

"No, I insist! Just for ten minutes," the target pressed, and Antonio, who played the role all too well, let his meek smile extend and he gave a timid 'alright then' paired with a nod.

Before Arthur knew it, all three of them were sitting down together on the bed, target wedged between them making far-from-sober conversation. He had to wonder if the target really had been given something, because he still hadn't reacted… Was it something slow-acting, perhaps? Was it even a poison? Arthur met gaze with Antonio a couple of times but no expression gave him any clues—all he got was one wink and a separate smile.

 _God_ , did he wish Francis or Gilbert were talking into his ear for once, just so someone could tell him what was going on. Why had they not used earpieces? (They rarely did in truth; they were another means of connecting one of the four to the rest of the four, which could mean trouble should one of them end up… compromised. It was just that on this occasion, Arthur found that a load of bullshit, to be perfectly honest).

In the end, it took seven minutes for the target to announce that he suddenly felt very groggy and tired, before he fell forwards off the bed and onto the floor in a rather uncomfortable looking position. Arthur moved and made sure he was still breathing, which he was. He was actually still half-awake, but whatever he had been given had completely disoriented him; he was muttering and seeing, but he wasn't… _there_. 

Arthur finally asked Antonio: "What in God's name are you doing here?" swiftly followed by: "What did you do to him?"

Antonio, amused, swirled the half-full glass of champagne in his hands and explained to him: "I'm here because I knew you'd try to smother him, and that would be a problem. Stage the scene all you want—it would have been too suspicious for a man with almost perfect health to have died in bed. His colleagues would have questioned it, which would make our lives harder when we go after them next."

"Right. But what did you _give_ him?"

"Just some flunitrazepam that Gil helped me turn into a concentrated liquid so it worked a bit fa—"

"You _roofied_ him?"

"Yeah. Why? Is that… bad?" Antonio questioned with a slight but curious frown. 

"Ever heard of an _autopsy_?"

" _Psht._ Autopsies aren't automatically done on dead people. And this guy is going to commit suicide shortly and slit his wrists, so there won't be any reason to check his blood," Antonio reminded Arthur, not that it overly settled him or convinced him that it made everything okay. Though he did add: "If it's any consolation, I have three doses of flumazenil in my pocket that will flush his system over the course of three hours, leave no trace of the drugs."

"You are…"

"Amazing? Smart? Irresistible?"

"Incorrigible, I was going to say."

Antonio did not respond to that. Instead, he enlisted Arthur's help in moving the body into the bathtub. Their target was utterly out of it, almost seeming paralysed. Antonio decided it was best to strip him, run some water (on the cooler side, just to mess around with the time of death for a bit of so-called 'fun'), and they let the man just chill in his tub, relax a little, though they made sure it was not so deep that he would slip and drown. That really _would_ put a spanner in the works. 

When they were done, they returned to the attached bedroom and Antonio started to clean up the glasses they had all been using (he would dispose of all of them as fine glassy powder down the sink). As he did so, Arthur felt a question bubble in his throat.

"How did you do it?" he asked, moving to sit back down on the bed. "You drank from the same glass as him, and yet, you're fine…?"

Antonio set the glasses down on the table and paused for a moment, before he turned to Arthur and walked towards him. "Come on, surely you can work that one out," he said.

Arthur was not so sure. He was stuck staring up at the brunette, who smiled back down at him, and he vaguely recognised that glint in his eyes; they weren't the _'beg me'_ eyes but more… soft, yet also somehow still quite coy and teasing. Arthur would have called himself out for thinking Antonio was looking at him like _that_ (even if they had done 'it' a few times by now in their young little _liaison_ ) had the Spaniard not proceeded to make himself perfectly comfortable stradling Arthur's lap. There was no denying it now. The blonde tried not to let himself be too flustered or surprised but Antonio put his arms around his neck and, _fuck_ , he smelt good… 

"I told you, Gil helped me get it down to a concentrated liquid form," Antonio went on, paying no mind to how Arthur was responding to his corporal actions. "A small dose was enough to put him out of action, so I lined the rim of half of the glass," he explained. "All I had to do was make sure he drank from the right side, and that I touched the clean side."

"And you managed that? You didn't muddle which side was which, even for a moment?" Arthur queried. His arms had apparently at some point become autonomous, and wormed their way around the other; Arthur was simultaneously alarmed but reluctant to pull away.

In the meantime, Antonio chirped a pleased: "Nope!" and he smiled down at Arthur, a finger moving to gently poke him on the nose as he leaned in close, just centimetres away. "Tell me you're impressed with me—go on."

But he couldn't bring himself to. When he thought about it… "I think you're incredibly stupid for risking that like you did," Arthur told him instead. Antonio’s smile did not falter and he instead snorted a laugh as he sat nack uo straight, but the other did not share in his humour. Arthur was seriously concerned. "You didn't even have to drink from that glass at all! So I am _not_ going to praise you for putting yourself in harm's way like that—!"

" _Shhh_ , you're being too _loud_ ," Antonio chided with a light giggle, a finger pressed firmly to Arthur's lips. "We wouldn't want to get caught, hmm?"

The Brit grabbed his offending wrist with a huff and tugged his hand away, though he maintained his grip on it, and he received another snort as Antonio took his other hand and put a finger back over his mouth just as the blonde went to speak. _Shhh!_ Undeterred, Arthur seized that hand as well and what _that_ got him was an extremely glazed look of _'oh yeah, I like where this is going'_ and a sultry kiss as Antonio suddenly leaned forward and seized his lips in retaliation. It was slow and docile, cotton-soft and calm. Arthur was bewildered until Antonio pulled away, his hands still and limp in the other's grasp, and Arthur came to a small but significant realisation.

"You… didn't quite hit the right mark, did you?" he asked Antonio, now growing quite bemused himself as the brunette seemed to very slowly be becoming dazed. 

Antonio shook his head, teeth lightly digging into his lip as he tried to not laugh again. He must have just caught the edge of where he had laced the glass's rim; it wasn't enough to completely do him over like it had done their target so quickly, but it was clearly enough to make him _very_ malleable and airy. At least Antonio had informed Arthur already that he had the counter-drug that would fix this issue should it become… problematic. Which was likely.

"You know," Antonio then said, as he leaned his weight more and more against Arthur, "this bed looks _super_ comfy…"

"Do you think so?" Arthur responded, and the other nodded somewhat eagerly. "Did you want to lie down for a bit?"

" _Nooo_ , I want _sex_. You're so bad at taking hints!"

Ah. Well. This was… not quite what he had had in mind. "So I gathered. But you do realise," he felt seriously obliged to point out, "that you have officially roofied yourself, which means that we don't know if you'll even remember any of this afterwards…?"

Antonio gave a loose shrug. "Today is our three month anniversary, I was going to make sure we had sex one way or another," he stated, "so I don't care if I don't remember it. Film it if you're worried—" _No way!_ "—I won't peak for another half an hour at least, _soooo_ I suggest you take me while I'm still forming normal sentences, sweetheart."

" _Or,_ " Arthur countered (meanwhile burying the shock news that they had already been in a relationship for three months and had so far survived each other), "we use that flumazenil so you don't peak at all."

It took a few moments for that idea to sink in. Antonio frowned to himself as he mulled it over and Arthur looked at him expectantly, hoping he wasn't already too far gone. 

"That's… not a bad idea," the brunette soon mumbled, voice quiet as though he were embarrassed he had not had such a thought himself. _How is this guy a professional assassin?_ "We should… probably do that, huh?"

Arthur nodded and reached out a hand to cup the other's cheek, stroking his thumb over warm and flushed skin. "I reckon that's for the best," he said softly in turn, meeting Antonio's gaze when it lifted from his lap. Arthur smiled at hi. "You really are a muppet, you know that, right?"

"I know," he agreed, resigned to this new label. Not that his deflation stopped him from asking: "We're still going to have sex though, aren't we…?"

"Just as soon as you let me give you that antidote," Arthur reassured him (because, well, if Antonio really wanted it and they had this lovely, big bed to themselves then... _why not?_ ).

Antonio conceded and directed Arthur to the inside pocket of his jacket, where he had been carrying the pack containing the syringe and liquid flumazenil. As Arthur fished out what he needed and opened the small black package so he could administer the drug as soon as possible (he would use it all; their target's death could be staged instead as an overdose and accidental drowning quite easily to make up for both of their oversights), Antonio found something amusing once more, rocking gingerly in Arthur's lap.

"I guess this makes you my doctor, and me your patient, huh?" he remarked.

"I suppose so," Arthur concurred.

"Well then," Antonio then said in turn, "tell me, doctor. How do you want me?"

Arthur's eyes drifted from the clean needle to his 'patient' and he couldn’t help but match the smirk he was met with. 

While he waited for Antonio to move off of him, strip himself of his suit, and lie down in the big comfy bed as instructed, Arthur contacted Francis via the emergency mobile and warned him they would be a couple of hours (he did not fully explain why) and to keep that substitute footage going on the hotel cameras. He would have no choice, really—not while they were both in there together. With the ‘do not disturb’ sign already hanging on the suite door, the pair would be left in peace. They would have their fun, they would complete the hit, and they would get the files they had come for.

When the chance came, Antonio pulled Arthur onto the bed with him and the Brit had to pry himself free from a snug embrace so he could, as he reminded the other, give him that antidote. Antonio surrendered and gave Arthur the instructions (because it turned out he would need more than one dose over a longer period of time to avoid the extreme symptom of amnesia), but not before he encouraged the other to sit on top of him.

"Happy three months, _turrón_ ," Antonio grinned up at him once Arthur had gotten comfortable, vial and syringe in his hand (how that wasn’t intimidating, he wasn’t sure; perhaps that was just the effects of the tranquiliser, numbing the other to fear, as well). “While this is not _quite_ how I intended on celebrating, I’m not going to complain. _Te amo_ and all that jazz.”

“I love you, too. But you definitely want to do this?” Arthur clarified. 

“Yes, I would prefer to not be drugged up.”

“I meant the sex.”

"Well of course I want the _sex,_ I interrupted your hit for a reason!” Antonio stated, but he gave a soft laugh and set a hand on Arthur’s chest, just over his heart. “Come on, doctor,” he said softly, and those eyes… _Damn those eyes…_ “Make me feel better, already.”

**Author's Note:**

> my search history now looks dodgy, thnx me <3
> 
> this is longer than other parts in this February series because i got carried away, but you can't blame me, you have to blame the characters for writing themselves. and Toni may be an experienced assassin but he is also very dumb at times, like,, good luck to Arthur lmaoo my man is just a c h i l d ,, he needs adult supervision (and an adult rating smh) :')
> 
> (note: in relation to the 'Four' series, this takes place roughly two years after they all meet in Istanbul in 'Before Four'.)


End file.
